Kodi Smit-McPhee

An accomplished and award-winning actor before he even reached his teen years, Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee won international acclaim for his portrayals of sensitive yet worldly young men in "Romulus,...
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Two co-stars, not quite alike in dignity. British newbie Douglas Booth has been cast as Romeo in Carlo Carlei’s version of the bard’s tale. Booth, 19, will star alongside True Grit’s Oscar nominee Hailee Steinfeld, 14 as the starcrossed lovers. The talented young cast also includes Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl) as Tybalt and Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) as Mercutio.
Booth enters the project largely as an unknown- his prior credits include a role in Starz’s Pillars of the Earth, and little else. His upcoming role in Romeo and Juliet, along with his appearence in the new Miley Cyrus film LOL might make him a name, however. Romeo and Juliet is also the first English-language film for director Carlo Carlei since 1995’s Fluke.
Steinfeld’s casting signaled a younger-leaning cast for the film, perhaps echoing Franco Zeffirelli’s famous 1968 version with a 15-year old lead. Casting actual teens seems appropriate for the story, seeped as it is in age-specific emotional angst, but who knows if this will translate to acting talent. Between this remake and the upcoming Hunger Games film, the next few years will be full of a lot of teens stabbing each other to death.
Source: Cinema Blend

Watts' role in Mother and Child has landed her a place on the shortlist for the International Award For Best Actress along with Toni Collette, Edge of Darkness' Bojana Novakovic and Alice In Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska.
Worthington is competing for the International Award for Best Male for his role in blockbuster Avatar, going up against Simon Baker, Ryan Kwanten and Kodi Smit-McPhee.
Other stars nominated for prizes at the upcoming ceremony include Clive Owen, who is up for the AFI Award For Best Lead Actor for his role in The Boys Are Back, alongside contenders Ben Mendelsohn, James Frecheville and Brendan Cowell.
Abbie Cornish has received a nod for the AFI Award For Best Lead Actress and The Hurt Locker's Guy Pearce is heading the nominations for the Best Supporting Actor trophy.
Movie Animal Kingdom tops the nominations board with a record 18 category listings, Beneath Hill 60 is up for 12 awards and Jane Campion's Bright Star will compete for 11 prizes.
The ceremony is due to take place on 10 and 11 December (10) in Melbourne, Australia.

Actor Jesse Eisenberg seems to like to appear in movies that open during the first weekend in October. Last year on this very same weekend he starred in Sony's well-reviewed horror comedy hybrid 'Zombieland' as a reluctant gun-toting zombie killer. This year he takes on a much more cerebral character who uses his intellect to redefine the world of social networking rather than splattering zombie guts all over the screen. To that end, few movies are able to create as much pre-release excitement as Sony’s 'The Social Network.' With Oscar buzz, critical raves and over 500 million members who use Facebook on a daily basis, David Fincher’s big screen adaptation of this incredible entrepreneurial story is set for a solid debut this weekend. The seeming fascination with the rise of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg (Eisenberg) from Harvard student to multi-billionaire gives the film instant appeal. Throw in Justin Timberlake, a terrific trailer, great writing, solid directing, mix together and you’ve got a recipe for a film that will perform strongly not only this weekend, but over the long haul.
Currently performing well over the long haul is Warner Bros.’ ensemble heist drama 'The Town' which dropped a minuscule 34% last weekend and will hold steady again in this, its third weekend of release. Incredibly positive response by audiences toward this potential Oscar nominee will keep this one in the money well into the fall movie season. This is the very definition of quality fall filmmaking and has brought new levels of respect to actor/star Ben Affleck. With a stellar supporting cast including Jon Hamm, Jeremy Renner and Rebecca Hall, this is a must see film for those looking for a well above average drama with plenty of action thrown in for good measure.
Gordon Gekko in Fox’s 'Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps' has been strong at the box office mid-week will be in the running for a respectable second weekend payday. After its number one debut last weekend, “Wall Street” clearly shows that Michael Douglas’ portrayal of this iconic character is still of interest to audiences more than twenty years after the release of the original film.
Warner Bros.’ will continue to be well represented in the top five in the second weekend of the 3D animated and IMAX-enhanced 'Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.' Opening with $16.1 million last weekend, the film will continue to find favor with families who are finding multi-plexes loaded with decidedly adult-oriented fare and few options appropriate for their kids.
With terrific reviews, phenomenal acting and a director who has arguably improved on the Swedish original, 'Let Me In' from Overture Films is one of the few horror films in years to generate solid reviews and a grudging respect from foreign film aficionados. Based on 2008’s acclaimed “Let the Right One In,” the film has eerie visuals, strong performances and enough truly scary moments to satisfy the horror fans and generate long term interest in the weeks to come. Terrific young stars Chloe Moretz and Kodi Smit-McPhee join the great Richard Jenkins in this riveting film.
Click here for my Spotlight on 'Let Me In's' Kodi Smit-McPhee
Year-to-date box office revenues have now topped the $8 billion mark and are running 3.88% ahead of last year while attendance is still lagging by nearly 2% as we continue through the always eclectic, often rewarding fall movie season.

Kodi Smit-McPhee ain't afraid of no ghosts.
The young actor just dropped some news yesterday that he's starring in the upcoming animated film Paranorman.
"I play a boy named Norman who can see ghosts and he saves the world from a zombie division," he said while talking about his upcoming film Let Me In. Uh, hello? Spoiler alert Kodi? Come on!
Just kidding. Paranorman isn't even written yet. Currently, the film is tentatively set to release in 2013 and is being penned and directed by Chris Butler. Laika Entertainment -- responsible for Coraline and The Corpse Bride -- will produce.
This is all great news for Kodi, whose career is taking off. The young actor -- who starred in 2009's critically acclaimed The Road -- is quickly becoming one of the hottest teen actors in Hollywood. Paranorman will be his first voice acting role, and we're assuming since the film will be animated, he'll have a chance to show a more comedic side than in his other work.
Bottom line, it looks like there's a good chance we'll see more and more Kodi Smit-McPhee over the next few years. Wait. Listen. Hear that? That's 14-year-old girls everywhere screaming with excitement.
Source: Shock Till You Drop

Matt Reeves' magnificent Let Me In is an Americanized adaptation of Let the Right One In a Swedish horror film which itself is based on an acclaimed novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist (also Swedish). As such its setting has been moved from frigid Scandinavia to the more familiar but no less frigid Los Alamos New Mexico a town depicted as so bleak and uninviting as to provoke a lawsuit from the state’s tourism commission. Its atmosphere is particularly inhospitable to timid loners like 12-year-old Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee) a spindly late-bloomer who suffers regular humiliations at school courtesy of a trio of pubescent sadists.
Owen’s home life isn’t much better: Dad’s gone for good pending a divorce from mom who’s an aspiring wino and something of a religious nut. He seeks refuge nightly in the solitary confines of his apartment complex courtyard where he meets and befriends Abby (Chloe Moretz) a new neighbor and apparent kindred spirit whose quirks include a penchant for walking barefoot through the snow. That along with her professed inability to recall her exact age provides Owen with the first clues that his new friend may not be entirely normal.
She is in fact a vampire. And like any vampire Abby requires blood for sustenance. But since the sight of a little girl chomping on the necks of locals is certain to raise eyebrows at Child Protective Services she entrusts the duty of procuring nourishment to her haggard elder companion (Richard Jenkins). First believed to be Abby’s father but later revealed as otherwise he (his name is never stated) trots out wearily on occasion to find a fresh young body to drain of its blood. His skills appear to be slipping in his old age (like Owen he is a mere mortal) and his sloppiness soon attracts the attention of a grizzled local cop (Elias Koteas) who has no idea how far in over his head he is. (The film is set in 1983 when the vampire-detection tools available to law enforcement officials were woefully inadequate.)
Meanwhile Abby and Owen’s relationship blossoms and notwithstanding the inevitable complications that arise in every human-vampire relationship they develop a profound and sweetly innocent bond. Still lurking in the back of our minds is the knowledge that Abby at her core is a remorseless bloodsucker and one significantly older than her pre-teen visage would have us believe. Is her affection for Owen sincere or is she merely grooming him to assume the role of her caretaker once her current one exceeds his usefulness?
There’s a great deal of manipulation at work in Let Me In both on the part of Abby and director Reeves who alternates between tugging on our heart-strings and butchering them. Abby is one of the truly great horror villains — so great in fact that I suspect many audience members won’t view her as one even as her list of mutilated victims grows. Reeves does well to preserve an element of ambiguity resisting the urge to proffer a Usual Suspects-esque denouement inviting us instead to connect the story’s dots ourselves. The film’s unique and affecting juxtaposition of tenderness and savagery combined with a slew of stellar performances makes for an experience unlike any other in recent horror-movie memory one whose effects will linger long after the closing credits have rolled.

Every once in awhile a newcomer arrives on the screen that obliterates all expectations and, in the process, makes an indelible impression on the viewer. A young actor with the unlikely name of Kodi Smit-McPhee is the co-star of the incredible new film Let Me In from Overture Films. Let Me In is a remake of the acclaimed Let the Right One In which was released in 2008 to almost universal praise. The movie ostensibly is a story of a bullied 12 year old boy who befriends a strange girl who has just moved into his apartment building.
The original was a Swedish production directed by Tomas Alfredson and was hailed as a truly original, thought-provoking work that was refreshingly subtle in its take on the vampire mythology that has been widely appropriated for numerous films and television shows to varying degrees of artistic success. Screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote the original novel, also penned the screenplay for that international hit and is a co-screenwriter (along with director Matt Reeves) on the American version. His participation has proven essential in elevating this new production to a very high standard in terms of storytelling and dialogue.
14-year-old Smit-McPhee (who played the Boy opposite Viggo Mortensen in the big screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road) is absolutely mesmerizing in his role as Owen and is the true heart and tortured soul of the film. This is no small feat considering the incredible performers who worked on Let Me In, including the great Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and another brilliant newcomer, 13-year-old Chloe Moretz (Kick Ass) who plays Abby, the vampire girl-next-door.
The vulnerability that this young actor is able to convey, particularly in the painful to watch scenes of the almost constant bullying that he is forced to endure at the hands of a sadistic older boy and his minions, is revelatory and heartbreaking. Yet there is always a sense of intelligence and resolve that comes through; as Owen’s love and affection for Abby grows we empathize with him and we are remarkably transported back to our own memories of pre-teenage angst and longing.
Of course all of this is set against a backdrop of visual melancholy, interspersed within scenes of intense horror-style violence and gore, all of which serve to heighten the tension and add to the awe inspiring effect of watching director Reeves (Cloverfield) work his visual magic and express his unique cinematic style. The filmmaker drew incredible performances from all of the actors, but it is Smit-McPhee who stands out above the rest. He is the anchor; the one in the film that is most relatable and we are with him every step of the way through this incredibly scary yet heartfelt and touching journey. To call it a mere horror film is an injustice since it is so much more than that.
Hollywood got it right this time and Let Me In is both a worthy successor to its predecessor and a great film in its own right. Be sure to catch it this Friday, October 1st, when it goes into national release.

Let Me In hits theaters next week, October 1, and we're pretty sure you should be seeing it. So much so that we're going to give away an iPad to get you amped for this film. You read right.
Directed by Matt Reeves (Cloverfield), and starring the impressive Chloe Moretz (Kick-Ass), Kodi Smit-McPhee (The Road) and the always amazing Richard Jenkins, Let Me In is the story of a bullied and neglected twelve your old boy who forms a profound bond with a secretive young girl. As a string of grisly murders occupy the town, Owen has to confront the reality that Abby may be hiding an unthinkable secret.
Sounds good, doesn't it? Now onto the goods!
The Prize
(1) 16 GB iPad with Wi-Fi and 3G, valued at $629!
How to Enter
1. Become a Fan of Hollywood.com - Go to our Facebeook page here and click 'Like' at the top of the page. If you're already a fan, then just continue to the directions below.
AND
2. Do one of two things: either retweet this post, and make sure to include the #LetMeInToWin hashtag, or leave a comment below telling us why you can't wait to see Let Me In.
*Note: If you use the retweet button on top of the page, it will automatically include the hashtag.
One lucky winner will be chosen randomly on Monday, September 27. Please note, you MUST have a valid US address.
Good luck, and remember that whether you are entering by retweeting this post or commenting below you must be a fan of our Facebook page.

Every once in awhile a newcomer arrives on the screen that obliterates all expectations and, in the process, makes an indelible impression on the viewer. A young actor with the unlikely name of Kodi Smit-McPhee is the co-star of the incredible new film Let Me In from Overture Films. Let Me In is a remake of the acclaimed Let the Right One In which was released in 2008 to almost universal praise. The movie ostensibly is a story of a bullied 12 year old boy who befriends a strange girl who has just moved into his apartment building.
The original was a Swedish production directed by Tomas Alfredson and was hailed as a truly original, thought-provoking work that was refreshingly subtle in its take on the vampire mythology that has been widely appropriated for numerous films and television shows to varying degrees of artistic success. Screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist, who wrote the original novel, also penned the screenplay for that international hit and is a co-screenwriter (along with director Matt Reeves) on the American version. His participation has proven essential in elevating this new production to a very high standard in terms of storytelling and dialogue.
14-year-old Smit-McPhee (who played the Boy opposite Viggo Mortensen in the big screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road) is absolutely mesmerizing in his role as Owen and is the true heart and tortured soul of the film. This is no small feat considering the incredible performers who worked on Let Me In, including the great Richard Jenkins (The Visitor) and another brilliant newcomer, 13-year-old Chloe Moretz (Kick Ass) who plays Abby, the vampire girl-next-door.
The vulnerability that this young actor is able to convey, particularly in the painful to watch scenes of the almost constant bullying that he is forced to endure at the hands of a sadistic older boy and his minions, is revelatory and heartbreaking. Yet there is always a sense of intelligence and resolve that comes through; as Owen’s love and affection for Abby grows we empathize with him and we are remarkably transported back to our own memories of pre-teenage angst and longing.
Of course all of this is set against a backdrop of visual melancholy, interspersed within scenes of intense horror-style violence and gore, all of which serve to heighten the tension and add to the awe inspiring effect of watching director Reeves (Cloverfield) work his visual magic and express his unique cinematic style. The filmmaker drew incredible performances from all of the actors, but it is Smit-McPhee who stands out above the rest. He is the anchor; the one in the film that is most relatable and we are with him every step of the way through this incredibly scary yet heartfelt and touching journey. To call it a mere horror film is an injustice since it is so much more than that.
Hollywood got it right this time and Let Me In is both a worthy successor to its predecessor and a great film in its own right. Be sure to catch it on October 1st, when it releases nationwide.

If you need to get the bad taste of Twilight out of your mouth, go and rent Let The Right One In. It’s a smart, atmospheric, and genuinely disturbing vampire film, and one of the best films of the decade. But if you think subtitles are hard and really love that girl from Kick-Ass, you could do worse than going see the American remake Let Me In instead.
Starring Kodi Smit-McPhee, of The Road, and Chloe Moretz, of Kick-Ass, Let Me In tells the story of Owen (Smit-McPhee), an alienated young boy who develops a close friendship with his mysterious new neighbor Abby (Moretz). The remake seems to be staying close to the original, at least visually. Judging by the trailer, it flat-out recreates several moments from Let The Right One In, though hopefully the cat-attack scene with horrible CGI will not be among them. While I appreciate that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, I don’t see the point of remaking a film if it’s going to be exactly the same, but in New Mexico. Hopefully director Matt Reeves will be able to bring something new and unique to the material .
Let Me In is due out on October 1, 2010.

While Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Road could hardly be deemed unfilmable the way it conveys its primary themes of survival moral responsibility and fierce paternal love through evocative prose and a decidedly minimalist narrative makes it a risky candidate for cinematic adaptation. And considering that the slender story follows an unnamed father and son trekking across a ravaged post-apocalyptic landscape and trying their best to ward off starvation suicidal urges and other survivors who have resorted to theft and cannibalism any film made from the material would need to retain McCarthy’s underlying message of hope lest the whole experience become too oppressively bleak.
Director John Hillcoat’s last film the overrated Australian Western The Proposition was such an aggressive wallow in gratuitous sadism that he would seem a disastrous choice to bring The Road to the screen. And the opening passages of his adaptation — which are marred by a choppy uncertain rhythm and an overreliance on pointless incessant voiceover narration recited by Viggo Mortensen (playing the father AKA The Man) — only confirm that hunch.
But luckily after those uneven first 30 minutes or so the film finds its footing and slows down to the leisurely tempo that this contemplative story requires. On a couple of occasions Hillcoat again indulges in his penchant for gruesome overstatement — when The Man tends to a wound in his leg it’s not with a needle and thread as in the book but with staples hastily used as stitches — and aside from a decent amount of striking painterly wide shots of the film's gray desolate landscape and a few genuinely poetic moments Hillcoat’s touch as a director remains more functional than inspired (which can’t be said of Joel and Ethan Coen who masterfully adapted McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men). Yet he’s intuitive enough to realize that what any film adaptation of McCarthy’s best seller would need to do first and foremost is get the central father-son dynamic exactly right and he and screenwriter Joe Penhall wisely trust in the primal emotional connection between The Man and The Boy (Kodi Smit-McPhee) to carry the film.
Mortensen and Smit-McPhee who was 11 years old when the film was shot form an organic achingly tender bond. Both actors have shed enough body weight to appear appropriately skeletal as these malnourished characters — there are a few gasp-inducing shots of their ribcages bulging out of their bare torsos — but what’s even more impressive than that physical transformation is the way the two of them find small emotional details that give their characters’ relationship an authentically lived-in feel whether it’s Mortensen’s affectionate laugh at Smit-McPhee’s use of the word "Cheetos" or the contented noise Smit-McPhee makes when Mortensen tucks him in at night. With his effortless ability to convey deep feeling through the lines in his face and through his sad expressive eyes Mortensen would be a challenge for any child actor to keep up with but Smit-McPhee who previously showed promise in the mostly disposable Australian drama Romulus My Father gives a thoughtful nuanced performance that impressively matches Mortensen’s haunted work. It’s within the intimacy between these two actors that McCarthy’s message of staying alive for the person you love the most — even when death seems a tempting escape from hell on earth — is most vividly illustrated onscreen.
A few recognizable faces pop up in extended cameos including Charlize Theron who plays The Man’s now-deceased wife in flashbacks but the only actor who manages to dwarf the two leads is screen legend Robert Duvall. Playing an elderly fellow traveler who The Man and The Boy come across in their exhausting journey toward some kind of hope Duvall movingly captures the tangle of emotions one experiences when reconnecting with humanity after a long spell of loneliness in under 10 minutes of screen time. His pivotal scene is the rare bit that works better in the film than in McCarthy’s book and it’s also a reminder that there are a few actors out there capable of blowing Mortensen the mighty Aragorn from the Lord of the Rings trilogy right off the screen. In a solid film that has a lingering effect nothing stays with you longer than Duvall’s pure emotional rawness.

Title

Gained notice for playing the son of a troubled family in the Australian drama "Romulus, My Father"

Appeared in the Australian telemovie "The King"

Played a young Jake in the Lifetime series "Monarch Cove"

Cast as the unnamed son of Viggo Mortensen's character in the screen adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"

Played the role of Owen in the horror film "Let Me In" directed by Matt Reeves

Summary

An accomplished and award-winning actor before he even reached his teen years, Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee won international acclaim for his portrayals of sensitive yet worldly young men in "Romulus, My Father" (2007), "The Road" (2009) and "Let Me In" (2010). He rose quickly from featured player in U.S. and Australian television productions to "Romulus," a dramatic adaptation of philosophy professor Raimond Gaita's troubled childhood, which earned Smit-McPhee the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Young Actor. He then impressed American audiences as Viggo Mortensen's son in John Hillcoat's gripping action-drama "The Road" before landing the coveted role of a bullied boy who finds friendship with a child vampire in "Let Me In." Smit-McPhee's scope of talent indicated he would continue to give extraordinary performances for years to come.